The Landmarks Preservation Commission held a hearing today on a major renovation and modernization plan for the Carnegie Hall building, which is famous not only for its concert halls but also for its artists' studios, many of them skylit, that have been used in the past by such famous cultural figures as Isadora Duncan, George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Lee Strassberg, Childe Hassam, and Enrico Caruso and whose present tenants include Editta Sherman, a 97-year-old photographer who testified today against the plan, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, architects, and Bill Cunningham, the wonderful New York Times photographer who arrives at all the best places on his bicycle.

There were 107 large, high-ceiled artists' studios on the upper floors of the landmark building on the southeast corner of 57th Street and Seventh Avenue and Carnegie Hall has gotten rid of 101 tenants since it announced its plans in 2007. The six remaining tenants are rent-controlled and have refused buyout offers.

Carnegie Hall wants to convert the spaces to classrooms and music education facilities and to replace the saw-tooth, skylit roof with a large roof garden with a retractable awning overlooked by a dining hall and a glass-enclosed elevator. The roof garden would not be visible from the street, but is very visible and very, very dramatic from higher floors in the nearby skyscrapers.

Robert Tierney, the commission's chairman, said that he favored the renovation plans, adding that the skylights were "not historical" and had been added in the mid-1980s and that the commission was not concerned "with the spaces below them." In the 1980s, however, the skylights were rebuilt and they had been there from the late 19th Century. The commission did not take a vote today on the application.

One speaker pointed out that the interiors of Carnegie Hall were not landmarks.

The original plan for the structure, which was funded by Andrew Carnegie, envisioned a roof garden, a popular building feature at the time, but it was never created and Mr. Carnegie saw this gift to the city as an important mixed-use cultural facility.

The building originally was seven stories and a full floor was later added as well as a 15-story tower on the eastern side on 57th Street and a 12-story tower on 56th Street. The original architect was William B. Tuthill and Henry J. Hardenbergh did subsequent work on it.

Some studio tenants indicated in the past that they were disturbed by the fact that Natan Bibliowicz, the son-in-law of Carnegie Hall's chairman and major benefactor, Sanford Weill, a former head of Citigroup, had been hired for the renovation project which is expected to cost at least $100 million and also involves getting rid of an exposed rooftop watertank, replacing the existing metal-and-glass entrance marquees with very thin glass marquees, and improving the lighting of the building's exterior. Mr. Bibliowicz, a partner of Iu & Bibliowicz Architects, previously designed a facility for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Christabel Gough, secretary of The Society for the Architecture of The City, told the commission that "the destruction of the roofscape would be destruction of a significant architectural feature which should be sacrosanct under the landmarks law." "The use of these spaces or their re-purposing," she continued, "should not be allowed to lead to the removal of the visible reminders of studio history. Nor is it acceptable to clutter the roofscape with contemporary mechanicals such as the transparent elevator tower."

Commissioner Diane Chapin said she was concerned about the skylights that have "been an important feature" and that she felt uncomfortable with "losing a piece of social history."

Commissioner Chris Moore said that the applicants made "a great presentation, but the opposition made a greater presentation."